Medicines are typically packaged in bottles, cartons, blister packages, or other suitable packaging prior to use. These packages routinely include child-resistant features to reduce the risk of a small child accessing and ingesting the medication.
Child-resistant features generally require some combination of dexterity, strength, and intellect to operate, such as for example, with a two-step process. For example, a child-resistant bottle cap could include a mechanism that must be squeezed while it is turned and opened. A child-resistant blister package could include a layer that must be peeled away or a tab that must be exposed and activated before the medicine can be accessed by conventional methods of pushing the medicine through the foil layer of the blister package. Such packages are designed to be difficult for young children to access; however, an unintended consequence can be that the elderly, those with poor eyesight, and those physically handicapped by diseases such as arthritis also can have difficulty opening such packages.
As such, there remains a need for an improved child-resistant package that is difficult for small children to open, yet easier for adults to open than conventional child-resistant packages. There also remains a need for an improved child-resistant blister package that is convenient to manufacture and carry. Furthermore, there remains a need for a child-resistant blister package that can provide stringent levels of child-resistance using a one-step process.